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Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#401

Post by d0liver »

thot_experiment wrote: post #107
crazygringo wrote: post #40

Not really, because I saw too many software companies go out of business because not enough people wound up upgrading to the next major version -- the ownership model of software can be awfully feast-or-famine for developers' income, it's a very tough/risky business model. Generally speaking, I'm happy to pay a subscription because this way I get a steady stream of all the updates, and it's much more likely the compa…

What the heck subscription models are you using? In my experience the software gets broken over time and you can't do anything about it, including RUN THE OLD VERSION WHICH WORKED. There's no longer as much incentive for companies to improve because they'll get paid anyway instead of payment being contingent on actually delivering something useful. Yes subscription models are good for developers, no this doesn't make…

Pretty much all software companies now have ongoing costs associated with the software after you would have purchased it - ops, hosting, security updates, and backports for compatability. In order to sell it to you and have it make sense they'd need to charge you a lot for it - the cost of keeping it up for however long you might use it. Essentially you'd need to pay ten years worth of subscription costs and just not have a choice in the matter. I'm sure they would prefer that, but you wouldn't buy it at that price because you know you probably won't use it for that long. Also, maintaining multiple versions of the thing is going to be a lot more expensive than just getting everyone on the current version. So, the company which has ongoing costs charges you an ongoing bill because it makes the most sense for both of you.

I think that maybe what you really don't like is the fact that US monopolies are not regulated and so all of your options suck whether or not they are SaaS companies.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#402

Post by Brajeshwar »

I'm totally for subscription. But please give me an option for either on-time or short-term burst of usage too for a small price instead of a high monthly. There are times when I want to use something just for a few hours and that's it. I might never need to touch the software for many months.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#403

Post by lapcat »

Gigachad wrote: post #397
lapcat wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be updated? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34043936

There aren’t always new customers to sell to. When your system requires on constant growth to not collapse, it isn’t sustainable. A Ponzi scheme is the closest way I can describe it but I wouldn’t say it’s fraud since you weren’t promised future updates. You just implicitly require and expect them.

I really don't see how there's any difference between software and physical products.

Businesses are working year-round — manufacturers are manufacturing new products, software developers are writing software updates — and also selling year-round. If you run out of customers, that's of course a problem, but that's not a unique problem to software.

As a software developer, I sell new copies year-round, every day, and also release updates year-round. If I run out of new customers I'll let you know, but last month was actually my best sales month ever.

What do you mean exactly by "constant growth"? You need constant sales, yes. You don't necessarily need a constant increase in sales, if sales are at a sustainable level.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#404

Post by FpUser »

solardev wrote: post #386
FpUser wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Take IntelliJ for example. There was a big uproar when they moved to a subscription model" They did not move. They still offer perpetual license. Otherwise I would not be using their products.

It's both isn't it? Subscription plus perpetual fallback?

yup. best of both worlds.

I actually do the same in with one of my products.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#405

Post by happyjack »

This is my opinion on the matter, whether popular or not.

Yes, I'd rather own than rent. Instances I really don't mind paying a subscription for:

1) an open source product that has a free / freemium model where the base product is great, and the "extra" stuff is cheap like $10 a year (Bitwarden and Zotero came to mind) and well worth the extra $. I'll happily pay for that and think that's worth.

2) anytime hardware is involved. Email and storage services come to mind. You're spinning other peoples disks and using their servers. Shit breaks.

Things I despise paying subscriptions for:

1) desktop software that runs on your own hardware that comes with no support (Microsoft office, adobe, etc.) piss off Microsoft 365

2) desktop Linux. I love RHEL, but paying $175 a year forever to have a workstation with zero ticket support is annoying. I know developers gotta eat, but it's a big turn off. I know Macintosh computers are overpriced for the hardware but you get 10+ years of updates.

I think that's it for now?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#406

Post by agowa338 »

You can thank the finance people for that. If you want to get investors for anything these days they ask for your plans on getting recurring revenue. So no longer one off purchases for anything. Even more traditional companies move to this stupid model for that reason. Like car makers putting features you already paid for behind a subscription to activate them...

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#407

Post by least »

class4behavior wrote: post #340
least wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify still hasn't reached feature parity with Spotify when it first came out. Only recently did something as basic as lyrics return. It's still not extensible like it once was.

There were no lyrics all this time? Either it's really hard to get people to pay attention to alternatives like Deezer and Tidal or there is little demand for lyrics.

Spotify's killer feature at this point is probably that they have an ad-supported tier while none of the other services (that I'm aware of) do... unless you count youtube?

I think lyrics was a bit of legal hurdle so Spotify had to get rid of it. I imagine they brought it back recently as they worked out a legal way to provide them again.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#408

Post by thot_experiment »

inglor_cz wrote: post #175
thot_experiment wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck subscription models are you using? In my experience the software gets broken over time and you can't do anything about it, including RUN THE OLD VERSION WHICH WORKED. There's no longer as much incentive for companies to improve because they'll get paid anyway instead of payment being contingent on actually delivering something useful. Yes subscription models are good for developers, no this doesn't make…

I am fine with the subscription model of IntelliJ and their IDEs. The progress is real and if you stop paying, you lose the ability to upgrade your IDE, but the older versions still work.

They're one of the only companies that seem to have a pro-consumer, or at least balanced implementation of SaaS. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but if I can install the older versions I already paid for, sgtm. I don't have a use for IntelliJ but if I did I would almost certainly pay.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#409

Post by nvln »

I'm tired of it and everything (analytics, growth hacking, conversion metrics, ad-tech) that comes along with it. It has sapped my desire to make good products. I've decided to abandon all VC wisdom and go retro. I'm experimenting with an extremely liberal pricing model and business ethos for my upcoming products and hoping against hope that it succeeds. https://koodpad.com/notes/why-pay/

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#410

Post by watercooler_guy »

fxtentacle wrote: post #123

As a software developer, I experienced the need for subscription revenue first hand. Regular users want support for their software and there's only so much you can do for a fixed one-time payment. As an example, Windows might update on their computer without their knowledge but that Windows update breaks something so the user is like "I didn't change anything but your app stopped working" and in that situation you're…

I strongly second this. The JetBrains model is the best of both worlds and everybody wins. Being able to own a certain version of the software at my option makes me feel respected by the company, and it's also motivation for the company to continue delivering real value to users over time -- they gotta earn that subscription fee :)

Depending on the product, another model I like is dual licensing, where if you're an individual or noncommercial user, you get one price/it's free, and if you're a commercial customer, you get another price/subscription agreement

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